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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Kansas >> Pawnee County >> Ash Valley >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Ash Valley (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Ash Valley. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Name Variations for Ash Valley ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might occur.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Ash Valley: Ash Vly. (or less commonly used: Ash Vally. or Ash Vlly.)

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Ash Valley is located in Pawnee County.

To see how the shape of Kansas' counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Pawnee County: Barton, Edwards, Hodgeman, Ness, Rush & Stafford.

Below are the counties that are near Ash Valley. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Ash Valley:

  • Pawnee County     (The home county of Ash Valley)
  • Barton County
  • Edwards County
  • Ellis County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ash Valley, with the one closest to Ash Valley listed first.
    • Pfeifer
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • Pfeifer is located in Ellis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pfeifer
    • Schoenchen
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Schoenchen is located in Ellis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Schoenchen
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 206 people
  • Hodgeman County
  • Ness County
  • Rush County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ash Valley, with the one closest to Ash Valley listed first.
    • Timken
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Rush Center
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Bison
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
      • Bison is located in Rush County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bison
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 224 people
    • La Crosse
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Nekoma
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Nekoma is located in Rush County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nekoma
    • Otis
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Alexander
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Hargrave
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Liebenthal
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
      • Liebenthal is located in Rush County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Liebenthal
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 91 people
    • Loretta
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • McCracken
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Stafford County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ash Valley, with the one closest to Ash Valley listed first.
    • Radium
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Seward
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Seward is located in Stafford County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Seward
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 62 people
    • Macksville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Ash Valley, see our County-by-County Page for Ash Valley.

Cemeteries Near Ash Valley ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Ash Valley.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Ash Valley - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Ash Valley covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Ash Valley, with the one closest to Ash Valley listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Ash Valley had a population of 71 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Ash Valley, with the one closest to Ash Valley listed first.

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Ash Valley. See our List of 1890's Communities around Ash Valley.

Newspapers Published in Ash Valley ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 88 newspapers that have been published in the area around Ash Valley.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Ash Valley, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Ash Valley.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Ash Valley:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Ash Valley, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Ash Valley) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.